In the past, rock crusher designers have endeavored to improve the ease of operating and adjusting horizontal shaft impact rock crushers. While many improvements have been made to reduce the effort associated with adjusting such crushers, adjustment and locking of the tension bars for breaker plates on such crushers remains a non-trivial task. Most crushers usually have two breaker plates. A primary breaker plate is disposed nearest the feed opening and nearest the top of the crusher. These crushers typically have a secondary or rear breaker plate, which is generally located lower in the crusher and more toward the rear of the crusher. Both types of breaker plates typically employ one or more tension rods each to maintain the breaker plates at a set distance from the rotor of the crusher. Some attempt has been made to reduce unintentional changes in the setting for these breaker plates.
One example is the crusher shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,089,481 entitled APPARATUS FOR RELIEVING THE LOAD ON ADJUSTING RODS OF A CRUSHER, issued to Gregory A. Young. This patent shows a lower adjusting nut and an upper locking nut disposed on a tension rod. In this design, a large torque is typically applied to the locking nut to prevent unintentional movement of the breaker plates. The necessary level of torque generally requires the use of a wrench. Other designs have been used to reduce unintentional breaker plate setting changes during operation, such as bar type nuts which permit the locking nut to be hammered upon until tight.
While these approaches of using double nuts, etc. have been used extensively in the past, they do have some drawbacks. First of all, they generally require the use of a wrench, hammer or other tool to make the necessary adjustment. Secondly, in the cases of the high torque requiring double nuts, there is often difficulty in achieving the necessary torque. Consequently, these nuts can often be under-tightened, thereby allowing the breaker plate to self adjust.
Consequently, there exists a need for improved methods and systems for securely adjusting the setting of breaker plate adjusting tension rods in an efficient manner.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for adjusting a breaker plate setting in a horizontal shaft impact rock crusher in an efficient manner.
It is a feature of the present invention to utilize a nut rotation prevention device coupled with two nuts on a threaded tension rod.
It is an advantage of the present invention to achieve improved efficiency in adjusting the settings of breaker plates in horizontal shaft impact rock crushers.
It is another advantage to permit breaker plate locking nut adjustments to be made without requiring the use of locking nut-engaging tools.
The present invention is an apparatus and method for adjusting and securing the settings of breaker plates on horizontal shaft impact crushers, designed to satisfy the aforementioned needs, provide the previously stated objects, include the above-listed features, and achieve the already articulated advantages. The present invention is carried out in a xe2x80x9ctool-lessxe2x80x9d manner in a sense that the need to use a wrench or other tool to unlock an adjusting nut for a breaker plate tension rod has been eliminated.
Accordingly, the present invention is a system and method including a horizontal shaft impact crusher having a breaker plate tension rod nut rotation prevention device coupled to two nuts on the tension rod.